Category: Games

What should I ask Magnus Carlsen?

For a likely CWT.  The agreed-upon topic is the history of chess.  Not Hans Niemann, not life after chess, not family life, not politics, not the young Indian players.  But consider the run of chess history from say Philidor up through Magnus himself, but not including Magnus.  Not quiz questions or stumpers (he is great at those), but serious questions about the history of chess and its players.

What should I ask?

Updating our views of nuclear deterrence, a short essay by o3 pro

I asked o3 pro how very recent events should update our perspectives on Schelling’s work on nuclear deterrence.  I asked for roughly 800 words, here is one excerpt from what I received:

…Deterrence models that ignore domestic legitimacy under‑predict risk‑taking.

6. The United States is both referee and participant

American destroyers shooting down Iranian missiles create a blended deterrence model: extended defense. That blurs the line between the traditional “nuclear umbrella” and kinetic participation. It also complicates escalation ladders; Tehran now weighs the prospect of an inadvertent clash with the U.S. Fifth Fleet every time it loads a Shahab‑3. The war thus updates Schelling’s idea of “commitment” for the 21st‑century alliance network: digital sensors, shared early‑warning data, and distributed interceptors knit allies into a single strategic organism, reducing the freedom of any one capital to de‑escalate unilaterally.

7. Lessons for non‑combatant nuclear states

New Delhi and Islamabad will notice that an opaque Israeli arsenal backed by high‑end defenses delivered more bargaining power than Iran’s half‑finished program. Pyongyang may conclude the opposite: only a tested, miniaturized warhead guarantees respect. Meanwhile European leaders should ponder how much of their own deterrent posture rests on aging U.S. missiles whose effectiveness presumes no adversary fielding Israel‑grade intercept layers. The Israeli‑Iranian conflict is therefore less a regional exception than a harbinger.

Here is the full “column.”

One or two game theoretic observations

So far the campaign is a major “win” for (non-LLM) AI, though that is not yet a story.  There is a reason why Palantir was priced at 300x earnings.

If you are one of those Iranian leaders, or nuclear scientists, your calculus has to be that you can never step outside again, at least not anytime soon.  I believe that situation is unprecedented in the history of wartime?  It remains to be seen how much that will shape the logic of deterrence and in turn outcomes, but I will be pondering this and observing.

POTMR.

My Conversation with the excellent Any Austin

Here is the audio, video, and transcript.  Here is an introduction to Any Austin:

Any Austin has carved a unique niche for himself on YouTube: analyzing seemingly mundane or otherwise overlooked details in video games with the seriousness of an art critic examining Renaissance sculptures. With millions of viewers hanging on his every word about fluvial flows in Breath of the Wild or unemployment rates in the towns of Skyrim, Austin has become what Tyler calls “the very best in the world at the hermeneutics of infrastructure within video games.” But Austin’s deeper mission is teaching us to think analytically about everything we encounter, and to replace gaming culture’s obsession with technical specs and comparative analysis with a deeper aesthetic appreciation that asks simply: what are we looking at, and what does it reveal?

Excerpt:

COWEN: The role in history is important to me. Now AI-generated art would have its own role in history, but it wouldn’t compete directly with Michelangelo. When it comes to movies, I think it’s different because mostly when I’m seeing movies, I’m seeing new movies that don’t yet have a role in history. If the new movie were made in part or fully by the AI, or maybe I’m making it myself, I don’t think I would be any less interested. It’s all artifice anyway.

AUSTIN: There’re two things I take a little issue with there. I don’t take issue with the fact that the role in history is important and beautiful, but the fact that you can watch a movie and get an emotional thing from it without having its role in history implies that there’s some intrinsic, whatever, value to the movie itself, et cetera. Is the implication there that if you didn’t know the role in history of Michelangelo’s David, or whatever, you would look at it and go, “That’s just a guy.” Do you think there’s no intrinsic something to that thing?

COWEN: There’s some, but if I didn’t understand Christianity, Florence, the Renaissance, I think it would lose more than half its value.

AUSTIN: Which artistic mediums is that true for you, and which ones isn’t it? Like music —

COWEN: Abstract music — the role in history is not that important in most cases.

AUSTIN: It’s more of a supplement to you. It makes it more fun to learn about. If you know that Mozart was in the place with these people and were . . . If you understand all of that stuff, it’s fun.

COWEN: That’s 10 percent of the value, but not that much.

AUSTIN: Is it 10 percent . . . Is it the same type of value to you? Or is it just a separate thing to know —

COWEN: Separate thing. With opera, the role in history becomes important again. You hear Don Giovanni. You know about Romanticism, the Enlightenment, Casanova. It all makes much more sense, and it’s funnier.

And this:

COWEN: I have a favorite infrastructure. For me, it would be bridges, ports, and harbors. Do you have a favorite infrastructure?

AUSTIN: Definitely. I’m a big fan of . . . Oh, man, bridges are really good. Bridges, ports, harbors. Roads are good. Actually, no, it’s the stuff we don’t see. Sewage is pretty crazy to me. That we’ve managed to take care of all of that is pretty wild. Energy infrastructure is really fascinating to me.

COWEN: I love wind power turbines.

AUSTIN: Wind power turbines are scary, but I respect your opinion. Nuclear power plants are awesome. Really, really cool.

COWEN: Agreed.

AUSTIN: We should have more. That’s not a policy thing. I think they’re neat. We should build them for the aesthetics, honestly. We should just build those towers. Forget about the —

COWEN: You don’t need the power. Just build the thing. That’s why it’s an artwork.

AUSTIN: Yes, I agree. You have to put in some kind of steam thing because you want to see the steam coming out of it, but just generate steam for no reason. Don’t put any fans in or any spinning turbines or anything. Just have them.

COWEN: We would have historical context like with the sculptures, right?

Definitely recommended, an excellent and very different episode.

And note that Conversations with Tyler now has a dedicated YouTube channel.  Subscribe at youtube.com/@CowenConvos.

My Conversation with the excellent Ken Rogoff

Here is the audio, video, and transcript.  Here is part of the episode summary:

Ken and Tyler tackle international economic dynamics, unresolved macro puzzles, the state of chess, and more, including whether trade deficits are truly unsustainable, why China’s investment-heavy growth model has reached its limits, how currency depreciation neutralizes tariff effects, Pakistan’s IMF bailouts, whether more Latin American countries should dollarize, Japan’s deceptively peaceful economic decline, Europe’s coming fiscal reckoning, how the US will eventually confront its ballooning debt, the puzzling absence of a recession during our recent disinflation, the potential of phasing out large denomination currency notes, the future relevance of stablecoins, whether America should start a CBDC, Argentina’s chances under Milei, who will be the next dominant player in chess, hanging out with Bobby Fischer, drawing out against Magnus Carlsen, and how to save classical chess from excessive computer preparation.

Here is an excerpt:

COWEN: Just predictively, what do you think the United States will do with its fiscal position?

ROGOFF: That is a darn good question. Looking way forward, I would just say we’re on an unsustainable path. We will continue to have our debt balloon. Eventually — not necessarily in a planned or coherent way — I think we’re going to have another big inflation soon, next five to seven years, maybe sooner with what’s going on, and that’s going to bring it down just like it did under Biden. It brought the debt down. Then the markets are, fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, no, we’re raising the interest rate, and then we’ll have to make choices.

I think in the United States, a lot of the choices, I’m sorry to say, probably point towards higher taxation because we’re hardly running a welfare state. All due respects — and I’m not sure I have any due respects to DOGE — there’re not that many things to cut in the United States compared to many other countries. I don’t know what the choice will be. I probably won’t be here, and you might not be either, when we’re making the choices, but if actually we’ll —

COWEN: Oh, I think we’ll both be here.

ROGOFF: It could happen much sooner. On the other hand, it’s hard to know what’s going through Trump’s head. I presumed he was going to blow up the deficit, like everybody else. We’ll see.

COWEN: When you say big inflation, how big is big?

ROGOFF: Last time we probably had a bonus 10 percent inflation over the 2 percent target cumulatively, maybe 12 percent. I think this time, it’ll be more on the order of cumulatively over the 2 percent target, 20 percent, 25 percent. There’s going to be an adjustment. I don’t think the debt is going to be the sole contribution to that. There are many factors. You have to impinge on Federal Reserve independence. Probably, there’ll be some shock, which will justify it. I don’t know how it’s going to play out.

I know that for years, people have said the US debt is unsustainable, but it hasn’t come to roost because we’ve lived through this post-financial crisis, post-pandemic era of very, very low and negative real interest rates. That is not the norm. There’s regression to mean.

You know what? It’s happened. Suddenly, the interest payments start piling up. I think they’ve at least doubled over the last few years. They’re quickly on their way to tripling, of going up to $1 trillion. Suddenly, it’s more than our defense spending. That’s the most important macro change in the world, that real interest rates appear to have regressed more towards long-term trend.

COWEN: What’s the most plausible scenario you can imagine where the US does not have to make any major adjustment? I’m not saying you’re predicting it. I’m not saying you think it’s very plausible, but you have to come up with something. What is it?

Recommended.  And I am happy to also recommend Ken’s new book Our Dollar, Your Problem: An Insider’s View of Seven Turbulent Decades of Global Finance, and the Road Ahead.

My early history as a chess player

Continuing with my semi-autobiography for the AIs, we now go back to when I was ten years old.

One day I felt terribly sick, really just awful, as if my innards were on fire.  Fortunately my father insisted I go to the doctor, and it turned out my appendix was bursting and infected.  I was rushed into surgery, and luckily I survived.

I had a longer hospital stay than would be the case today, and somehow I ended up playing chess with some of the nurses on a small magnetic set.  All of a sudden I was hooked.

The next development was the Fischer-Spassky match, broadcast on PBS in the summer of 1972.  I followed the match closely and rooted for Fischer.  (Much later in life I met Eugene Meyer, through the Federalist Society.  He was a real celebrity!  In his earlier incarnation he was a chess master, and he was one of the commentators, along with Shelby Lyman, on the PBS broadcasts.  He will always be “Eugene Meyer” to me.  Remember when Reuben Fine walked into the PBS studio and made a cameo?  As a ten year old I was thinking what a horse’s ass he was.)

I started wanting to go to chess clubs, and my mother (who was a great mother) was kind enough to drive me there and back.  I also took chess books out of the public library and studied them.  Irving Chernev’s Most Instructive Games of Chess was my early favorite.  Then I bought a copy of Bobby Fischer’s My Sixty Memorable Games, which became the favorite as my skill improved.

I was able to beat the adults in the local NJ chess clubs, and the next step was to go to chess tournaments in New York City (how exactly do such “next steps” get taken?).  And so I did.  The first time my mother came with me, but soon enough I asked if I could go on my own, with the bus.  I think by then I was twelve?  Astonishingly, she let me.  Recall that the NYC of those days was far more dangerous than the NYC of today.  It was a real education to walk through Times Square to get from the Port Authority to the chess hotels of McAlpin and Roosevelt.  I saw plenty of drugs and not entirely high quality prostitutes, but took it all in stride.

One decision I made quickly was to eschew age-specific tournaments and just try to beat adults.  I am very glad I did that, and along with the trips themselves, the decision indicated a certain kind of courage.  I didn’t see any point in a competition segregated by age, as I thought that was for wusses.

I sometimes say there were two things I learned in my early chess career.  First, that I could win.  That gave me further confidence.  And I did win a lot.

Second, I learned that I could lose.  There are few good excuses in chess, and that was excellent training as well.  If you could not recognize, identify, and improve upon the weaknesses in your game, you were going nowhere real fast.  Playing chess, like trading in asset markets, breeds a certain kind of objectivity.

I also learned a lot about how to deal with adults.  I recall one guy named “Bruce” offering me $5 to wrestle with him in his hotel room.  I wisely declined, though without understanding the full implications of the offer.  I did not mention it to my mother.

Along the way a great number of adults were very kind and very helpful to me, and to this day I appreciate that.  Les Ault and Tony Cottrell were two names in particular.

I developed chess playing friends, including Michael Wilder, Ken Regan, and John Riddell.  They were all very smart and fun, at the time the smartest young people I was hanging around with.  It was from Ken Regan that I learned about Tom Lehrer, for instance.

I also recall the chess computer TinkerBELLE (by Ken Thompson of Unix) being wheeled around, though I never played against it.  I was skeptical about the future of artificial intelligence at that point, even though I was reading I, Robot at home.  (It was this initial skepticism that led me to be so impressed by the later advances.  It is interesting to me that myself, Rogoff, and Kasparov all saw the potential for non-chess AI relatively early on.  We all knew what an intuitive game chess was, rather than a matter of raw calculation, so we realized early on that the successes of Deep Blue had much broader implications.)

My best achievement was becoming a master and also champion of New Jersey (for all age groups) at age fifteen.  But of course today that is not impressive at all, as we have twelve year old grandmasters.  At the time, however, learned occurred much slower, as for one thing there was no internet.

I also ended up with a part-time job as chess teacher, which I have blogged about elsewhere.

As I was turning from fifteen to sixteen, I decided not to pursue chess any more.  As a career it was terrible back then with no real upside.  As for my chess future, my main problem was a lack of talent.  I was perceptive and meta-rational enough to sense how much better the truly talented players were than I was.  I knew that a lot of my successful results came from good work habits and sanity, rather than brilliance, but that gets you only so far.  I also didn’t hate losing enough.  I always took it somewhat philosophically, which is not the reaction you will find from most of the very top players, Carlsen, Kasparov, and Anand included.  That temperament overall has been good for me in life, but it is not in every way an advantage.

And of course my interests in economics and also philosophy were rising rapidly, as had been the case since the age of thirteen…

What should I ask Ken Rogoff?

Yes I will be doing a Conversation with him.  He has a new book coming out, namely Our Dollar, Your Problem: An Insider’s View of Seven Turbulent Decades of Global Finance, and the Road Ahead.

Ken is tenured at Harvard, here is his Wikipedia page, here is Ken on scholar.google.com, here is o1 pro on Rogoff, and he also holds the title of chess grandmaster.

Games we played

I always loved games and card games, and they played a big role in family life.  It was one activity that everyone, including my grandmother, could partake in enthusiastically, and on a more or less equal footing.

The big card game was euchre, yes euchre.  It is a trick-taking game with trumps, think of it as a much simpler bridge.  The jacks are the strongest cards, and they are called the Right and Left Bower.  The dramatic moment would come when you played with four people, and one player would announce that he or she wanted to “play it alone,” feeling confident of winning enough tricks without cooperation from the partner.

I recall sister Holly and I going to school, chatting with other kids, and being mystified that they never had heard of or played euchre.  According to Wikipedia, it is “commonly played” in “Australia, Canada, Great Britain, New Zealand, Upstate New York, and the Midwestern United States.”  I am not sure I have ever met another human being who mentioned the game of euchre of me, not outside the family that is.  Not even when I was living in New Zealand.  Arguably it has Alsatian origins?  At the time I assumed it was vaguely Scots-Irish, due to the family origins.

Somehow the custom of the game was transmitted through my grandmother’s “Uncle Benny,” have you ever wondered who really was an actual uncle back then? 

We loved the French card game Mille Bornes.  You are in a road race and trying to accumulate miles.  Different types of cards were for hazard, remedy, safety, and distance.  The card colors in that game were so nice, and I much preferred it to any American card game.  The flat tire cards were my particular favorite.  And looking back, one has to wonder whether the family ever played by anything resembling the actual proper, written rules of the thing.

As an aside, my sister and I regarded my grandmother as “speaking French,” even though I do not think this extended much beyond playing Mille Bornes, singing “Frere Jacques” and knowing a few worlds like “merci.”

I learned poker and blackjack, but never loved them.  I would play solitaire over the summer when I was alone.  Rummy and hearts were part of the family repertoire too.  I also liked to read books about games.

As my sister and I grew up and reached our early teens, Scrabble become dominant.  But if someone was tired and didn’t feel like concentrating too much, we would switch back to euchre.  At Scrabble I did very well.

When I was eight or nine, my Uncle Tom taught me the rules to chess, but at first the game did not interest me, not until I was ten years old.  The very first time I played he beat me with the Queen Anne’s mate trick, culminating in Q x f7.  I felt swindled — why were we playing this kind of game?

Overall I am struck by what a rich menu of games we had back then.  Loyal MR readers will know I am no Luddite, but I never wish we had had more technologically advanced games at our disposal.  I recall also that only games brought the whole family together, because television was too divisive, due to diversity of taste.  Two of us could find common shows, but it stopped there.  My sister and I watched Dragnet and Adam-12 together, with my mother I watched Star Trek, and with my father Frankenstein movies.  My grandmother watched only soap operas.

I also find that games and gaming are some of my most vivid and enduring memories from childhood.  A lot of the rest has escaped into the fog.  Today, however, I don’t play games at all.

Boris Spassky, RIP

In Leningrad’s embrace, midwinter’s chill, A prodigy was born with iron will. The chessboard’s call, a siren to his mind, Young Boris Spassky left his peers behind.

A crown he claimed in nineteen sixty-nine, Against Petrosian’s force, his star did shine. Yet Reykjavik’s cold winds would soon conspire, With Fischer’s challenge, stoking global fire.

The “Match of Century,” where East met West, Two minds engaged in psychological test. Though Spassky yielded, grace he did display, Applauding Fischer’s genius in the fray.

Beyond the board, his life took varied course, From Soviet roots to seeking new resource. In France he found a refuge, fresh terrain, Yet ties to Mother Russia would remain.

A “one-legged dissident,” some would declare, Not fully here nor there, a soul aware. Through Cold War’s tension, politics entwined, He stood apart, a free and thoughtful mind.

His games, a blend of strategy and art, Reflect the depth and courage of his heart. Now as we mourn his final checkmate’s fall, His legacy inspires players all.

Rest, Grandmaster, your battles now complete, Your journey etched where history and chess compete.

That is a tribute poem from GPT 4.5

What should I ask Any Austin?

Yes, I will be doing a Conversation with him.  If you don’t already know, Any Austin is a huge YouTube star.  Grok 3 gave me this summary:

Any Austin is a cerebral and innovative YouTube creator whose channel, boasting over 650,000 subscribers, transcends conventional gaming content to explore esoteric, often whimsical intersections of video games and real-world phenomena. Initially gaining traction with series like “Eggbusters,” where he meticulously debunks gaming myths, Austin has evolved into a niche polymath, crafting video essays that blend rigorous research with a dry, absurdist wit—think hydrogeology analyses of virtual landscapes or socioeconomic studies of NPC populations in titles like The Elder Scrolls. A former game journalist for Nintendo Everything and an indie pop musician under the alias Frostyn, he brings a multidisciplinary lens to his work, underpinned by a keen eye for the overlooked details of digital worlds. His content, which ranges from glitch exposés to philosophical musings on gaming’s peripheral elements, appeals to an erudite audience that values intellectual curiosity over mainstream bombast, cementing his status as a singular voice in the platform’s crowded ecosystem.

Here is Any Austin on Twitter.  So what should I ask him?

Some game theory of Greenland

It is commonly assumed that the U.S. “acquiring” Greenland, whatever that might mean, will result in greater U.S. control of the territory.  Along some dimensions that is likely.  But it is worth pondering the equilibrium here more seriously.

I observe, in many locations around the world, that indigenous groups end up with far more bargaining power than their initial material resources might suggest. For instance, in the United States Native Americans often (not always) can exercise true sovereignty.  The AARP cannot (yet?) say the same.  In Mexico, indigenous groups have blocked many an infrastructure project.

One reason for these powers is that, feeling outmatched, the indigenous groups cultivate a temperament of “orneriness” and “being difficult.”  Some of that may be a deliberate strategic stance, some of it may be heritage from having been treated badly in the past and still lacking trust, and some of it may, over time, be acquired culture as the strategic stance gets baked into norms and behavior patterns.

Often, in these equilibria, the more nominal power you have over the indigenous group, the more orneriness they will have to cultivate.  If you only want a few major concessions, sometimes you can get those better as an outsider.  A simple analogy is that sometimes a teenager will do more to obey a grandparent than a parent.  Fewer issues of control are at stake, and so more concessions are possible, without fear of losing broader autonomy.

So a greater American stake in Greenland, however that comes about, may in some regards end up being counterproductive.  And these factors will become more relevant as more resource and revenue control issues come to the table.  For some issues it may be more useful having Denmark available as “the baddie.”

It is worth thinking through these questions in greater detail.

On the Gukesh match (from my email)

  1. Unusual, relative to other competitions, that the (undisputed?) top 3 players weren’t competing for the title. The quality of play seemed correspondingly lower than other big tournaments.
  2. Ding really is quite an anomaly. Some massive holds despite admitting in interviews to not seeing some pretty straightforward lines. Huge props for him to reach game 14 the way he did with a win in game 12.
  3. Very very sad way (for both he and gukesh) to end the match.
  4. Guskesh will be an excellent champion and ambassador of the game.
  5. The format looks massively stressful, and I get why Magnus doesn’t play it anymore, but I think the format in a way is actually perfect. It rewards massive amounts of prep with an engine, plus provides a serious psychological battle, which all together actually seems to be a pretty good examination of what chess is in a world where humans are inferior to computers. Rapid is more fun to play, but classical really tests all your mental faculties.
  6. Next world championship could be a great one. Maybe a last chance for Fabi or Hikaru to win. Also very likely we see an all Indian match.

That is from S., all astute observations.

The show so far, Ding vs. Gukesh WCC match

After six games the match is tied.  Observers agree that the games have been of low quality and mostly not very interesting.  Both players have been reluctant to exploit potential opportunities.  If you don’t already know, Ding has been suffering from some version of “mental illness” (by his own account), and Gukesh, while extremely talented, is eighteen years old.

So what are the meta-lessons?  I see a few:

1. It is hard for a championship cycle, and its credibility, to survive a #1 stepping down, in this case Magnus Carlsen.  In some of his YouTube commentary he has been saying basically “oh my goodness, how come no one ever gave me these easy chances?”

2. There is a final irreducibility to actually having to compete, or solve a problem, and be put on the spot.  No pre-game analysis can do justice to this.  And as a related point, there can be super-talented people who fail in such situations.  How many NBA players really want to be taking that final shot in a big game?  This factor does not pop up in practice very often, because by definition it concerns exceptional situations.  But it truly does matter big time, and it helps if you have a good nose for who can rise to the occasion, or not.

3. Every championship process involves a kind of agenda-setting mechanism to see who competes.  These processes often are not rational, especially once some time passes.  If for instance Caruana were in this match, he would be crushing either side.  Yet he may never have a chance to play for the world championship once again.  So you need to take advantage of your opportunities when they come along.  That sounds stupidly facile, but in fact it is difficult to internalize that emotionally and act on it when you ought to.

In any case, I will continue to observe and learn.  Today is rest day, and you can expect another report from me.  Once something happens, that is.

New MRU Video! Negative Externalities

Here’s the latest video from Marginal Revolution University. It covers negative externalities–drawing, of course, from the most innovative and interesting principles of economics textbook, Modern Principles of Economics.

MRU videos are free for anyone’s use anytime, anywhere and don’t forget there are also two new econ-practice games on negative externalities and positive externalities and a fun choose your own adventure story on Unintended Consequences (most textbooks just teach when regulation works. We are more balanced.)